But sometimes hormones and other factors outside one's control force a person into ridiculously doting love affairs with pets. Usually it happens to childless females of baby-bearing age. If the classic arc is followed, things get worse with time, and before you know it, these women are signing their Christmas cards with little paw prints and buying pricey birthday presents for little Spot or Princess.

It used to strike me as loony, but not anymore. When an intense trans-species kinship threatens to occur, my advice is to throw common sense to the wind. What would you be doing with your time anyway? Just go with it. I did.

My fall from grace began in 1995, not too long before I turned 30. A simple phone call set it in motion.

"OK, I've found a black-and-white cat for you," chirped the woman, a member of a pack of New Orleanians who took in strays.

I needed a black-and-white pet bad, having recently left a five-year relationship that had at its center a fabulously fun and jocular feline of noir et blanc. Unfortunately my ex had acquired the cat a few weeks before we started dating, so when the end came, Fatty was his. I needed to replace him (Fatty, not the ex), and fast. A pattern was developing: the unforgettable two-tone border collie my family had when I was little; a perhaps unhealthy fixation on Sylvester the Cat; now this. Me minus a black-and-white pet was like a maritime man minus the sea. It was just wrong.

The animal woman agreed to put the word out on the street for me. That was months before; I was starting to think she was giving me the brush off. But then one night, lying in bed, I had an aural vision. A message entered my head, almost like a telegram. It said, "You shall have a cat. He will come soon. And you will call him 'Habbib.'"

Habbib? I thought. I don't know what it means, but all right. And a few days later, the phone rang.

"He's over in a house by the river, on Tchoupitoulas Street," underground-network lady said. "You can go see him."

Lil, the tiniest little slip of an old lady hunched over and dressed in purple polyester, met me at the door of the rundown old shotgun-style house. A cacophony of yaps and meows rose up behind her, and when she gave me the tour I saw that the entire ramshackle house was filled with dogs and cats. No furniture or people--just animals and cages.

Most of her boarders were in sad, sad shape, covered in mange or missing a leg or an eye. I felt pity, but I also bristled at the thought of the road pizza Lil was soon to try to get me to take home. I began strategizing. What excuse would I use not to adopt it once I saw it?

The last room on the tour would have been the front parlor if actual people lived in the place. There, Lil pointed to a wire cage stacked on top of two or three others. "Meet Sylvester," she squeaked.

All I saw initially was his fluffy black and whiteness. That was all well and good. But when "Sylvester" turned to give me the full frontal, I was stunned. I had envisioned a normal cat, with a normal cat face. This one looked more like, well, Gizmo from the movie Gremlins. His face was flat--eyes, nose, and mouth all at the same longitude and latitude. His eyes were massive, as were his paws. And thanks to the weird tricks genetics can play, this cat seemed to have a permanently disgruntled look. It was downright disturbing.

Nope, I said to myself. Nope, not going to do it.

Lil opened the cage and Sylvester slunk out, eyes fixed on me but his body taking its sweet time sauntering in my direction. I had to admit there was something intriguing about his attitude, the way he moved. He was so casual. So Dean Martin.

I plopped my butt on the room's one chair to watch him. Sylvester--his head had perfect Sylvester markings, but his body was the reverse, mostly white with the occasional black spot--jumped down off his cage and drifted toward me. But when he arrived, instead of lingering at my feet and looking blank or meowing for food, he knew what he had to do. He took the bull by the horns, crawling right onto my lap, standing on my legs and looking deep into my eyes, holding the penetrating stare and not blinking.

I melted like a wuss. Suddenly, he seemed flawless, quintessential. Up close, I saw the massive scope and soulfulness of his outsized amber-and-black eyes. There wasn't any disgruntlement there. His mouth may have been formed into a permanent frown, but this guy was all sweetness. And there was a sense of wisdom about him too. And confident eccentricity. And open-mindedness. Jeez, I thought, how could all this be present in the eyes of a cat?

Then it hit me: Obviously this was Habbib. Of course. With his face existing all on one plane like that, he had to be Persian, or at least part Persian, as in Middle Eastern, as in Habbib.

While the profound bonding process was under way, Lil talked a mile a minute, telling me she had been the first person in Louisiana to spay and neuter animals without a license. In fact, she'd long ago removed Sylvester's manhood. Seems he'd come to her as the flotsam thrown overboard after a bad divorce. He was about a year old, she said. I was barely absorbing any of that. "I'll take him," I said.

After a rigorous interview process and a one-month waiting period, I was able to whisk the little Buddha home. Habbib needed a good scrubbing and a work-up at the vet after all that time amid the indigent. His ears were filled with mites and his skin was crawling with fleas. But afterward, he emerged a beautiful cotton ball, one that meandered around in slow motion checking out everything in my apartment.

Our early life together was intriguing. While I worked during the day, Habbib took to redecorating my pad by jumping up on shelves and sweeping them clean, covering my floor with broken vases and scattered books. Somehow I didn't mind. Miraculously, I also didn't mind that he was jumping up on my bed at 5 a.m. and purposefully waking me with a serious of silent meows delivered directly into my ear. All I could hear was cat lips smacking, as Habbib had virtually no meow. Maybe something's missing in his throat. But the insistent smacking was enough to wake me and make me sit there wondering: How does he know where ears are and what they're for?

That was the beginning of our ridiculous love fest. Now, six years later, it's so bad that I have to stop several times a day to stare at him. I can achieve a sort of high by doing so. When he gets up on the bed at night to sleep in the crook of my arm or flush with my head, I feel so flattered. And when he passes out on the floor on his back, I have to go and get Marty to show him Habbib's curly belly. Poor Marty.

Thankfully, Habbib is into me too. He spends about two-thirds of his day following me around, angling to be near. Sometimes all I have to do is walk into a room and he starts purring. Lately he's taken to tapping me on the arm with his outsized paw when I'm doing something other than petting him. Please, no more typing, this gesture says, or I believe you're done reading now. This does wonders for the self-esteem.

Not too long ago, I learned that in Arabic habbib means "darling" or "sweetie." I'm not surprised. Some pals from Morocco told us that when listening to radio stations in Saudi Arabia, one often hears singers croon, "Habeeeeeebi." I'm not surprised at that either.

Habbib's got it going on. What validates me is that others are into him, too. At least two former co-workers who come over for parties have been reduced to puddles of goo around him. One woman announced in public that she wasn't going anywhere near any cat unless it looked like Habbib. Others ask if they can come over to visit with him, not me. Even my mom--not a cat person--is totally charmed by him. She asks me to send pictures.

Like a dog, Habbib comes when called. His dislikes include sneezes, the vacuum cleaner, and being picked up. His likes include crows flying outside, strings serpentining by, grilled pork, and reclining on the adjustable kitty window ledge I got him for Christmas.

Of course, we've had to do some adjusting over the years. When Habbib stopped focusing on hygiene in 1998, mats began to form in his thick fur. Rather than sit on the floor and brush him for hours each night, I decided to start having him shaved like a Schnauzer. Shaved bald, Habbib's body is a real disaster. His back is sway and the loose skin of his gut just about drags on the floor. Plus, he's outrageously pink under all that fur. It's really hard to stop staring and giggling. It costs $40 a pop but it's worth it.

The first time I had it done, the groomer advised that I keep people from making fun of Habbib's new look for the first few days. "He'll be sensitive," she whispered. But hours later my chum Mike came over and laughed uproariously. Habbib didn't mind at all. He's just that kind of dude.

When Habbib and I moved to D.C., I continued shaving him, but I began to worry about the cold. Yes, he's an indoor cat. But still, there are drafts. This had me concerned: Does he need an outfit in the winter, perhaps some fleece? I went so far as to shop in the small-dog-ensemble section of my local Petco. The selection was appealing, but I couldn't go through with it. Not because it was a ludicrous notion, but because I was afraid that if left alone all day in a fleece jumpsuit, Habbib might accidentally get caught on some random hook and hang himself. I resolved to never shave him in winter.

Once in a while I lay around ruminating on what Habbib must have been like as kitten. I regret that I wasn't there to see it. And what breed were his parents--both Persians? One Persian and one mutt? A mutt crossed with a Furby? When he blinks his huge eyes, he really does resemble a mechanical creature made for a movie set. There are never any cats that look quite like him in the cat books.

One time, I asked a vet what he thought Habbib was--meaning what breed. He scrutinized him from various angles, then he held his hand up to obscure Habbib's face.

"When I do this and look only at his body, he looks like a rabbit," he said. He wasn't joking.

Our lives together haven't always been smooth. Habbib has scared the bejeezus out of me a few times. One day about three years ago he was sitting on the toilet lid hanging out with me in the bathroom. When he grew bored and jumped down from the toilet, the impact of landing on the tile floor caused everything below his waist to suddenly go violently spasmodic. His legs were kicking and jutting and stamping wildly, and his tail flung back and forth. Thinking he'd dislocated a hip, I leapt out of the shower and tried to put it back into joint. But nothing was out of place. He continued spazzing for another 20 seconds or so, then whatever seizure he was having ended. He looked at me quizzically, but there was no pain in his eyes.

A freak occurrence, I figured. An anomaly, I told myself. I moved on. A few days later, though, it happened again. Pretty soon, Habbib was contorting involuntarily several times a week, giving me a small coronary with each bout. Oh no, I fretted mightily. What was wrong with my Habbibi?

I asked around. The consensus among cat owners seemed to be that it was either a brain tumor or a severe neurological problem. Oh Christ--no! I feared a life without Habbib. I also feared the vet bills. How much would brain surgery cost? $2,000? $3,000? I began to prepare for grief ahead. I called my mom. She suggested that, if I chose surgery, I ship Habbib to Florida for his recovery. There, she would serve as his doting, full-time home health aide.

But all my agitation was for naught.

"It's just that he's too fat," the vet said when I took him in. "There's too much weight on his joints when he jumps down. Put him on a diet." I did, and within weeks, the fits stopped and Habbib went back to normal. Whew.

Outside that, and the occasional skin condition, things had been smooth in the health department--until just recently. Habbib had taken to hanging out next to his water bowl with his chin soaking in it. I knew he had eccentric tastes, but this seemed a bit much. I called the vet. She said it sounded like the bizarre behavior that comes with old age. He's not really that old, I thought. He can't be senile yet.

Within a few weeks, though, Habbib had begun vomiting and pooping outside the litter box. He was leaving puddles of pudding everywhere. I got on the Internet one night in search of a diagnosis, and all signs pointed to--oh my god!--acute renal failure. Death was the next step, all the Web sites claimed.

I freaked. I ranted internally. Cruel Fortuna, don't take my Habbib! That night, I had trouble sleeping. In the morning, I got out my new 35mm camera and took sappy, maudlin close-ups of Habbib's face. I cried. Then I called the vet. She was all doom and gloom, just like the Web sites.

"He's crouching over the water bowl? Yep, sounds like dehydration from renal failure."

"But outside of the crapping and vomiting and crouching, he seems fine," I pleaded.

"Yep, that's what cats do. They mask their true feelings. You need to bring him into the ER right now."

I did, heart pounding hard and visions of loss clouding my head. After a long wait and much pregnant uncertainty, the vet came in and fiddled around with Habbib. The poor thing, he'd dropped two pounds--20 percent of his body weight; that's like 24 pounds for me--but apparently his vitals were fine. They did blood work to test for renal and liver failure, and Habbib and I left with some kitty Kaopectate and rattled nerves. The next day, the blood work came back stellar, and Habbib's furious expulsions gradually faded. "Could have been a bug," the vet said. Again, whew.

What I'm going to do when Habbib does bite the dust, I have no idea. I can't even fathom it. Given the level of devastation I experienced over his latest crisis, I might lose it altogether when he gives up the ghost. Or maybe I'll start having babies and make the natural transition to treating this celebrated creature like the average house cat--one that had better get off the damned dining-room table, one that will be out the door the minute he becomes more work than he's worth.

Then again, I highly doubt it.

Got a cabana boy, a bucket of soy, or a real Rob Roy for Suz? Then by all means, e-mail her at Germbag@starpower.net. Well, what are you waiting for? Go on, I said!